Wednesday, July 20, 2011

JESUS alone our Righteousness

I have never been able to understand ignorance. What's more, I have never understood why people fight intelligence. I think it is intimidating. I think also in some ways it causes shame. Sometimes a shame so deeply felt, it retaliates with anger, hate, and hurt. Somehow there came into the Apostolic mind that being equal as human beings as to opportunity and a right to happiness became translated as being equal in all other regards.

About seven years ago I saw something in action. Our youth were having a Bible game at Church and they were competing against each other. The youth were enjoying themselves in the game. There were winners and losers in each round. When the winning youth was announced in one game, a parent jumped to his feet and shouted, he wanted the games stopped. He did not want his daughter to be a loser. He demanded there be no more games where there would be losers.

What this was all about was verse and word memory. Kinda like Bible Quizzing. He was so angry his daughter lost he was disruptive, angry, and downright hateful. He pointed his finger at the other little girl who won and shouted: "you are no winner, so stop smiling and being happy and acting prideful." I was shocked at this outburst.  I later had to boot this guy out of the Church for reasons related to insubordination and outright rebellion.  What was so interesting in his protectiveness of his daughter, was that she did not study, prepare, or try to be a winner knowing before hand she would be in the contest. She was in fact lazy, unprepared, and this caused her to be ignorant and she could not press the buzzer and answer the questions.

I bring up this little story because it has all the ingredients of why some men hate knowledge, detest intelligence, and use accusations of pride when a winner celebrates his/her victory. This brought me recently to discover in Jesus a winner, an intelligent winner, and a man who beat those who contested against him with their wiles, schemes, and question-word traps. Some of his enemies expressed the same attitude this man did. Only thing was, Jesus was not expressing pride when he defeated his enemies.  I do know one thing, there is coming a time when God will laugh. And his enemies will not control that moment. You can be sure he did not walk away frowning. I am sure Jesus smiled a lot of times when he bested his enemies. I saw in this how righteousness is the victor. How winning causes happiness. And that there will be losers. Yes, there will be winners and losers. And the winners have a right to smile, be happy, because they prepared to be winners and won.

I saw in this how righteousness is the winner and ungodliness is the loser. I saw it. I saw who the happy people will be and who the sad and angry people will be. I saw how the Jews who rejected Jesus were the unhappy people and the Jews who accepted Jesus were the happy people. There is happiness in righteousness. Call this pride if you want. Call being on the winning side and smiling being prideful if you want. But at least one thing, it is intelligence smiling and happy about righteousness. That is why those who love Truth can read it and it will bless their soul. Those who reject it will get the molly-grubs, be cranky, and start shouting: end the discussion; end the game; I demand I am not a loser.

I was reading Jeremiah 23:5 and my soul and heart was so warmed.

"Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth."

Here is Jesus. A righteous branch. And in this righteousness he is qualified to execute judgment and justice. For sure there will be winners and losers here. I was a loser but today I am a winner. Righteousness judged me back in 1968 and I was condemned. I was brought to tearful repentance. And I humbled myself to the conviction of God's justice. After I was born again (Acts 2:38), I fell in love with the Bible Jesus, a love I still cherish to this day. I remember the day he became my Righteousness. That was the day be became my Lord and my King. I realized my salvation was a gift. I was counted and made righteous not by my own works, but by he alone who was Righteous. And it was his Righteous Blood that brought me to my God. I was a winner. I transferred from the loser side to the winner side. Yes, I was happy. Yes, I was always smiling. Yes, I was so full of joy. But there arose a screamer. A yeller, telling me: "you do not have the Holy Ghost until I say you have it." This woman, was usurping over my victory. She was like the man when his girl  lost. She wanted to slap the smile off my face. To take my joy away. To make me feel bad inside. I was young. She hurt me. She reduced me to dog food. And she drove me to my knees in prayer. As I entered into my prayer the Holy Ghost would fall upon me in a sweet and great way. I could hear God speaking to me to be happy, not to fear, to rejoice, and to praise him. All this I did as I stayed as far away from that woman as I could.

Jesus is my Righteousness. When I saw this revelation I knew I was on to something big. I read Hebrews 1:8-9 about Jesus loving righteousness and hating iniquity. Then I read 2Cor 5:21. My cup runneth over.

It was some years later in my early salvation years I was involved in an argument with a man over a doctrinal issue. I was right and he was wrong. In his wrongness, he would smile and grin, like each time he said something that he was right. Each time I repelled his falsehood, he would get mad. I thought, it is time for me to smile. And so I did. I think this is the first time I heard someone yell at me that God hated a proud look. And it was from a loser. He could smile and it was not a proud look. I could smile and it was a proud look. He could say his falsehood and this was not with pride. I could speak the Truth and this was called pride. He could be hateful and this was ok, everything I did was pride. So, I accepted that being in the Truth as being called pride. So when I see other jerks in falsehood using the word pride out of context, I know they know nothing about the Righteousness of Jesus and Truth.

I now greatly understand the need for Jesus to boast of himself being Alpha, Omega, and so forth. He is making us aware not only of who he is but what he is. For him to speak of himself as the root and offspring of David, tells me he wants us to know he fulfills Jeremiah 23:5.

Jesus alone is my Righteousness.  I look at the words "my Righteousness" the same as saying "my Lord."  I am not conveying to myself any righteousness by saying "my righteousness." I am saying he is my one and only Righteous God. By Righteous I also mean "Just, Holy, Sanctifier, and Justifier."

Brothers and Sisters, let me encourage you. You will have many enemies. They will falsely accuse you. They will try to spiritually abuse you by saying all manner of things about you. Here is how you win. Ignore them. Do something great for God. Do what others are not doing. Stand up for the Truth. Do not be intimidated. Do not allow the devil to quiet your tongue. Speak up for the Truth. Yes, we are in a contest. And the winners are us. Let the losers scream, yell, and shout halleluyah.  Remember, JESUS is our righteousness.

JESUS alone.

The name above all names.

JESUS our Righteousness

Bishop Reckart
Serving the Righteousness of Christ

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